The Biograph Girl

About the show

When Mary Gish and her daughters Lillian and Dorothy recognize their friend Gladys Smith in a film made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, they search for her at the studio headquarters in New York City. There they discover she has been rechristened Mary Pickford and is known as the Biograph Girl. Before long Lillian and Dorothy are acting in films directed by D.W. Griffith, and when he decides to relocate to Hollywood, he brings the girls and their mother with him. Lillian is cast in The Birth of a Nation, while Mary decides to leave Griffith in order to work for Adolph Zukor at a substantially higher salary. Eventually she finds herself forced to suppress her growing sophistication in order to maintain the image of innocence her fans have embraced. Shocked by the negative public and industry reaction to The Birth of a Nation, Griffith vows to make an epic film advocating peace and tolerance. Intolerance proves to be an artistic success but a commercial flop. Griffith's financial woes threaten to end his career until Mary joins him, Charles Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks to form United Artists. When Griffith's monetary situation fails to improve, he urges Lillian to accept an offer from another studio, and she reluctantly does. With the arrival of sound films in 1927, the industry's pioneers are forced to re-evaluate their careers and make plans for the future.